Books I read in October!: The Essex Serpent, How To Understand Israel, Where Am I Now? The Muse, Fly on the Wall, The Comet Seekers

It's been a crazy busy month and this is sooo late, but if you'll forgive me here be the books I read in October. I finished listening to Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent on audiobook, which was a dark and gloomy and exciting tale. I finally got Sarah Glidden's How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, which has been on my list for actual years, and really enjoyed it (her next book Rolling Blackouts is out now too.) Mara Wilson's Where Am I Now? was very enjoyable as an audiobook, narrated by Mara herself, talking about her life as a child star and what has happened to her since. The Muse by Jessie Burton had been languishing on my TBR pile all summer so it was good to get into it and enjoy its twists and turns. Fly on the Wall was a fun quick read by the absolutely wonderful E. Lockhart. And finally I adored Helen Sedgwick's The Comet Seekers, with its ghosts and star gazing and a spot of incest too. I'll get full reviews for a few of these up asap, which may also  be in ages but its a busy time of year forgive me!

The Essex Serpent- Sarah Perry

How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less- Sarah Glidden

Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame- Mara Wilson

The Muse- Jessie Burton

Fly on the Wall- E. Lockhart

The Comet Seekers- Helen Sedgwick

Top 6 Autumnal Reads! The Graces, The Sun is Also a Star, Through the Woods, Uprooted, The Comet Seekers, Prisoner of Azkaban

Helloo! Here is a fine selection of autumnal reading recommendations for you. The nights have well and truly drawn in now, so there is ample opportunity to curl up with a warm drink and a good book. I've chosen some witchy reads, like The Graces and Uprooted, one perfect fall day with The Sun is Also a Star, spanned a vast history of star gazers and ghosts in The Comet Seekers, re-thumbed the well worn pages of childhood with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and delved into some gruesome tales in Through the Woods.

The Graces by Laure Eve

The Graces by Laure Eve is a witch story set in a small seaside town, where The Graces are a rich, successful, beautiful family rumoured to be witches. Siblings Fenrin, Thalia, and Summer Grace have a magnetism to them that keeps most of the high school population fascinated and enthralled. Our protagonist River is obsessed possibly more than anyone else, and being relatively new to the school and town has been learning all she can about the family and their rumoured magic. River has had a troubled past and when she finds herself welcomed in to their inner circle she is desperate to discover the secret of their magic to find out if it can help her fix past mistakes.

Perfect autumnal read- don't go in expecting full blown magic and fantasy- think garden variety high school wiccans and then prepare to be surprised.

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Set on one fall day in New York City, this love story is about fate, destiny, the Universe and all those sickly sweet things. Natasha believes in science and facts and is definitely not sold on love and fate. On this particular day she is half a day away from being deported with her family to Jamaica. Having come to the United States as a child and with college less than a year away, Natasha is spending the day fighting for one last appeal to remain in New York. Daniel is a poet at heart but as the son of Korean immigrant parents he is expected to follow a very specific path to Yale and med school. In the city for an alumni admission interview for Yale later that day, Daniel is on his way to get his pony tail hair cut when he comes across Natasha deep in a headphone moment.

Don't be put off by the one-day-love-story premise, this is a clever, thoughtful, emotive book that was such a joy to read.

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

This beautiful graphic novel has such a nice spooky, autumnal cover and the stories within are so dark, magical, gruesome, and wonderfully told. I remember reading His Face All Red, the story about the two brothers, online quite a while ago and was definitely intrigued then. There is beautiful artwork throughout, with copious use of blood red for all the gore. Possibly not for the faint of heart. Definitely get Through the Woods for your collection, it's a beautiful book and will only maybe give you nightmares. 

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

This book is so much more than its blurb, which focusses on the wizard known as the Dragon, who chooses one young woman every ten years to serve him in his tower. The main character Agnieszka becomes his unlikely choice and a much bigger story unfolds from there. This is a book about magic in its many forms, magic you can learn from spell books, and magic you can summon from within. The world building is wonderful and rich, drawing on folk stories and fairy tales. I loved watching Agnieska learn about her new found powers and navigate the courts as an outsider, and use her outsider knowledge to discover more about the true villain of the book, the enchanted and evil Wood, which is slowly but surely taking over the whole kingdom. So spellbinding. Wonderful world building. Great magic. So much more than its blurb. And I really liked the ending.

The Comet Seekers

The blurb on Goodreads says The Comet Seekers is One Day meets The Time Travellers Wife, but that ain't the book I read. Told across moments in history when comets could be seen from the earth, we meet the past and present family members of Francois, who grows up in France, and Roisin, who grows up in Ireland. There are characters who feel too linked to their homes to leave, and characters who feel compelled to get out and explore the world. What makes it extra autumnal are all the ghosts. A book of comets and ghosts, staying and leaving, looking to the skies and looking to the earth. Also there's a chapter that features Blackford Hill, which I grew up next to. A perfect autumnal read.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The Harry Potter books are usually set over a whole school year, so we get a taste for all the seasons, but there is something particularly autumnal about the Prisoner of Azkaban. There's a secret werewolf, dementors descend on Hogwarts Castle, a murderer is on the loose from Azkaban, and The Grim just keeps on appearing in Harry's tealeaves. 

Snuggle up with your patronus and some chocolate just in case.

Review!: The Graces by Laure Eve

The Graces by Laure Eve is a witch story set in a small seaside town, where The Graces are a rich, successful, beautiful family rumoured to be witches. Siblings Fenrin, Thalia, and Summer Grace have a magnetism to them that keeps most of the high school population fascinated and enthralled. Our protagonist River is obsessed possibly more than anyone else, and being relatively new to the school and town has been learning all she can about the family and their rumoured magic. River has had a troubled past and when she finds herself welcomed in to their inner circle she is desperate to discover the secret of their magic to find out if it can help her fix past mistakes.

There is very little actual magic, which I think has disappointed a lot of people, but I found it to all the more enthralling to spend the book trying to figure out whether magic is even real in this world. There are loads of moments where you wonder if they really are witches at all. River is fairly unlikeable at times but also sympathetic; she's obviously very messed up by her past and her own relationship with the idea of magic. I very quickly found the beautiful Graces siblings to have the same sort of mystique that the beautiful Cullen siblings have, especially in their simultaneous transcendence and compliance in the high school popularity hierarchy. This is not Twilight though, it's much darker, the stakes feel much higher, and River may be much more mysterious and dangerous than all the Graces put together.

Don't go in expecting full blown magic and fantasy- think garden variety high school wiccans and then prepare to be surprised.

Review!: The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Following on from the awesome Everything Everything I was incredibly keen to read Nicola Yoon's next novel The Sun is Also a Star. Set on one day in New York City, this love story is about fate, destiny, the Universe and all those sickly sweet things. However this story is so powerful and unexpected that even the insta-love didn't bother and usually that REALLY bothers me. Natasha believes in science and facts and is definitely not sold on love and fate. On this particular day she is half a day away from being deported with her family to Jamaica. Having come to the United States as a child and with college less than a year away, Natasha is spending the day fighting for one last appeal to remain in New York. Daniel is a poet at heart but as the son of Korean immigrant parents he is expected to follow a very specific path to Yale and med school. In the city for an alumni admission interview for Yale later that day, Daniel is on his way to get his pony tail hair cut when he comes across Natasha deep in a headphone moment.

The love story that follows takes place across the next twelve hours, with point of view switching between Natasha and Daniel, with extra chapters of backstory on seemingly non important characters they encounter through the day. It's a testament to Nicola Yoon's writing that reading about two 18-year-olds falling in love over the course of half a day was not cringey, or eye-roll-inducing. The stakes felt real and high with Natasha's deportation looming and with it all her visions of her future. With Daniel thrown in the mix this felt like an even more cruel twist of fate.

If you loved Everything Everything I think you'll love this too. Don't be put off by the one-day-love-story premise, this is a clever, thoughtful, emotive book that was such a joy to read.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Review!: Desolation (The Demon Road Trilogy Book 2) by Derek Landy

Desolation is the second book of The Demon Road trilogy. Sooo spoilers ahead if you haven't read part one yet! We pick up where we left off with Amber and Milo on the run from the Shining Demon Astaroth who has the Hounds of Hell hot on their tails, and also her parents who are not pleased with how things went down in New York. They head to Desolation Hill, which is a tiny isolated town full of very unwelcoming people, but has the bonus of being out with Astaroth's reaches. Safe within the town's borders, with the hell hounds waiting just outside, they soon learn that something called Hell Night is only a few days away and they have been asked not so kindly to leave before then.

I thought this was a great follow up to Demon Road, less of a road trip this time, with most of the story's action taking place at Desolation Hill. We see Amber still battling with and coming to terms with her demon self, with some moments of genuine friendship forming between her and Milo. The introduction of the van full of young people, a Scooby gang homage complete with a dog, who travel the demon road as do-gooders battling all manner of demons, is brilliant. Kelly, Warrick, Linda, Ronnie provide a moral compass for being 'good' while Amber's parents and other demons are of course on the side of giving in to the 'bad'. The story is told from multiple points of view this time, with retired actors Virgil and Javier providing some comic relief and insider knowledge of the town.

The book culminates in an epic and quite frankly gruesome battle with so many moving parts it was almost too hard to keep up. There's quite the twisty ending so I am very much looking forward to reading the final part of the trilogy, which is out now!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Books I Read in September: Desolation, The Sun is Also a Star, The Graces, With Malice, Lucky Penny

Here be the books I read in September! I've decided to shake things up a bit in my blogging format to give each review I do its own post to make it feel extra special. I started this blog to keep track of what I was reading, keep a record of my thoughts after reading, and to encourage me to read more. Now I get a lot of books to review, which is fun, and I feel I should give those reviews their own posts because that's more helpful for everyone I think. Also the books I read within a month don't always go together as a nice curated set so they can be a little weird reviewed next to each other. I mean I'm just making myself more work but oh well!

So from now on the monthly round up will still exist as a nice list of the stuff I've read each month. Maybe I should put book hauls here too? Do people like book haul posts? Hmm who knows.

Anyway! This month I read:

Desolation (The Demon Road book 2) by Derek Landy

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

The Graces by Laure Eve

With Malice by Eileen Cook

Lucky Penny by Ananth Hirsh

Review! Blame by Simon Mayo

Blame is a high concept dystopian novel set in a version of the UK where the idea of 'heritage crimes' has taken hold. Heritage crimes are crimes committed by your parents or grandparents that have gone unpunished due to their deaths or disappearances leaving you to serve their time. Ant and her little brother Mattie are siblings stuck in a family prison with their foster parents, all serving time for the crimes of their parents. These non criminals are kept in a separate, but connected prison from those serving time for their own crimes, but with tensions brewing across the London prisons Ant and Mattie realise they might have a chance to break out. 

This is an intense and thrilling novel, which carefully sets up the dystopian premise and then causes a riot for all hell to break lose. The relationship between Ant and Mattie is beautifully written, with their Haitian heritage shown through the little bits of creole language they speak to each other. The pace really picks up about half way through, just as you were getting comfortable in the prison setting, lurching you out on the run. 

The media elements were used in a really interesting way, with televised propaganda depicting the heritage crime inmates as deserving of their treatment, brainwashing the public into agreeing with the inhuman practice. This was definitely reminiscent of The Hunger Games for me. The drones used for surveillance and spying were an all too familiar concept too. The 'strap' heritage crime inmates must wear creates a heavy, uncomfortable physical burden and mark on the person to accompany the mental burden they must endure too. 

A powerful, face paced, thriller with an incredibly fierce, loyal, and moral protagonist. 

I received a review copy of Blame from Penguin Random House in return for an honest review. 

Books I read in August!: The Yellow Room, What's a Girl Gotta Do?, Lady Susan, Nina is Not OK, Blame.

After a prolific July full of reading, August was always going to struggle to keep up. But I did manage to read from crrrrackers! I was really looking forward to delving into Jess Vallance's The Yellow Room after enjoying the super creepy Birdy last year. I also read the third in Holly Bourne's Spinster Club trilogy, What's a Girl Gotta Do?, which did not disappoint. I greatly enjoyed a Jane Austen novella, Lady Susan, and my audiobook of the month was Shappi Khorsandi's Nina is Not OK. I can confirm Nina is definitely not OK, and neither am I after listening to her story! Lastly I read Blame by Simon Mayo, which has its very own review here!

The Yellow Room

I read Jess Vallance's Birdy last year, which was a great book and very creepy, so I was very much looking forward to reading The Yellow Room to see how sinister its plot would be. The story follows Anna, a sixteen-year-old, who receives a letter one day from her estranged father's girlfriend, informing her of his death. After meeting Edie, the girlfriend, to discuss her father's death Anna is soon spending more time with Edie than with her school friends, confiding in her secrets that she has not told anyone else. Anna's relationship with the creepy, blackmailing Leon is at the heart of her greatest secret and their fraught encounters are chilling. Anna is struggling to solve her problems by herself and turns to Edie for help, the answers in the end however seem to lie with the mothers. Definitely dark, creepy, and chilling, but with an awareness and respect for mental health and illness. Definite must read. Can't wait to see what Jess Vallance writes next!

What's Girl Gotta Do?

Part three in the Spinster Club series, this time from Lottie's point of view as she embarks on a major feminist project, calling out every instance of sexism she sees in daily life. Lottie documents the project with the help of film student Will, who does not identify as a feminist and who soon becomes the object of a very confusing crush for Lottie. Evie and Amber are there helping Lottie out of course, but as the project gains traction online and the trolls start getting under her skin, Lottie struggles with motives for putting herself through such a draining experience. Is it keeping quiet and following the rules that will get Lottie into Cambridge, as her parents are insisting, or is it being unapologetically herself and committing to the project. A brilliant conclusion to the Spinster Club series. I'm in denial that this is the last we'll hear of the Spinster Club and hoping and praying they'll be back for more soon! Tip top stuff from Holly Bourne once again.

Lady Susan

This little Jane Austen novella is part of the Penguin Little Black Classics and a very fun read. A short epistolary novel documenting a colourful cast of characters mostly concerning themselves with the behaviour of a one Lady Susan Vernon, a young widow looking to secure husbands for both herself and her 16-year-old daughter Frederica. It was recently adapted for film by Whit Stillman, starring Kate Beckinsale as Lady Susan and Chloe Sevigny as Mrs Johnson, and definitely captures the fun and humour of the book. I might have to read some more of Jane Austen's juvenilia (new favourite word) as this was a very enjoyable read.




Nina is Not OK

I listened to Nina is Not Ok on audiobook, read by the author Shappi Khorsandi and wow it was an intense experience. 17-year-old Nina is in denial about her drinking problem, but her drunken exploits are becoming more and more dangerous. After her boyfriend Jamie goes off on his gap year and immediately gets a new girlfriend, Nina finds herself struggling to get through a day of college without having a drink. The wrong guys 'help' Nina home after she is thrown out of a club one night and the gap in her memory between leaving the club and finding herself in a cab home with her knickers in her hand soon weighs seriously heavy on her mind. There is this really unsettling mix of funny and light escapades with dark and harrowing trauma as Nina continues to make terrible decisions and spiral out of control, with her mum and step dad really helpfully deciding to move to Germany and leave her in London in the middle of her A Levels year. Poor Nina! Shappi Khorsandi's narration on audiobook was brilliant, and I'd definitely recommend experiencing the book this way, although I think it does up the intense and harrowing factor up by 100.

Don't forget to click through to my review of Simon Mayo's Blame here!

I received a copy of The Yellow Room from Hot Key Books in return for an honest review. All real opinions, promise!

Review! Mother Tongue by Julie Mayhew

I read The Big Lie by Julie Mayhew last year, the review of which you can read here, which was such a powerful and truly thought-provoking book. I was therefore awaiting her next book Mother Tongue with muuuch anticipation. 

Set in a small Russian town, the story follows Darya as she navigates the path to her future, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack at the local school, which leaves many young lives lost, including her little sister. Darya has spent the last six years essentially raising her sister Nika, with their mother bedridden since the birth, and so the loss of her life and her presence in Darya's life is monumental. The community is shaken and in recovery when foreign aid workers and journalists arrive to cover 'the story'. 

Darya's search for a way out of her hometown and the boring life that lies ahead of her, at first has you rooting for her to achieve her pencil-pot and secretary-friends dreams. But as she becomes more lost you begin to question her escape from grief and the importance of home. Darya is this stubborn, strong willed character, too big for her small town, but too naive for a big city like Moscow. 

Where The Big Lie had you calling for revolution, Mother Tongue leaves you at lot more introspective, asking questions of how to define identity, home, and grief. Mayhew is a brilliant author, and I can't wait to see what comes next.

I received a copy of Mother Tongue from Hot Key Books in return for an honest review. 

Books I read in July! Part 2: Uprooted, Passenger, Ctrl Alt Delete, On the Other Side

Helloo and welcome to part 2 of what I read in July! You can read part 1 here, where I reviewed The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Uncommoners, and Rooftoppers. Part 2 is much less middle grad fiction, much more young adult/ adult fiction. I read Uprooted by Naomi Novik, Alexanda Bracken's Passenger, listened to Ctrl Alt Delete by Emma Gannon on audiobook, and On the Other Side by Carrie Hope Fletcher. Some of these I loved, some of these I didn't really love... so without further ado here are my reviews!

Uprooted

I got this BEAUTIFUL book in hardback for my birthday. It's just so beautiful with shiny gold and with pretty blue and with the illustration of the tower casting a shadow over a little house. I was also very pleased to find the contents just as enjoyable. This book is so much more than its blurb, which focusses on the wizard known as the Dragon, who chooses one young woman every ten years to serve him in his tower. The main character Agnieszka becomes his unlikely choice and a much bigger story unfolds from there. This is a book about magic in its many forms, magic you can learn from spell books, and magic you can summon from within. The world building is wonderful and rich, drawing on folk stories and fairy tales. I loved watching Agnieska learn about her new found powers and navigate the courts as an outsider, and use her outsider knowledge to discover more about the true villain of the book, the enchanted and evil Wood, which is slowly but surely taking over the whole kingdom. So spellbinding. Wonderful world building. Great magic. So much more than its blurb. And I really liked the ending.

Passenger

So I found this book to be promising at first. It follows the stories of Etta Spencer and Nicholas Carter who are both travellers, able to travel through portals to different points in time and history. Etta has been raised unaware of this ability in New York, where she is a skilled violinist awaiting her debut. She gets thrust into the past and into the world of travellers one night after a performance and a tragic accident. She meets Nicholas aboard the ship he is captaining and learns she has been kidnapped by the Ironwood family, to whom Nicholas was previously a slave. Together they go on a hunt through history for a valuable time travel object that chief evil Ironwood patriarch wants to get his hands on. All this was very exciting and well paced, I loved the bits on board the boat and the race through history following clues left by Etta's mother. However, I was really majorly put off by the romance plot. It's a classic I-just-met-you-but-I-would-die-for-you insta-love and there are endless lengthy will-they-won't-they-have-sex scenes with detailed multi sensory descriptions. This really slowed the pace down considering they were in a life or death race against time. I think I would've absolutely loved this book if the whole romance plot had been entirely dropped. Nicholas is black and from past and I get that Etta wanting to have sex with him would be a big historical taboo. But ugh, I just found it so slowing for what was otherwise a very fast paced plot. He could've been gay, that would've been much more interesting, and Etta could've been focused on her mum not getting murdered. Overall, cool premise and great story, just could have done without the romance.

Ctrl Alt Delete

This book is wonderful! I now fully love Emma Gannon. I've been listening to Emma's podcast of the same name and really enjoying it. She's had some tip top great guests on so far. So the book chronicles Emma's life growing up online, going on chatrooms and photoshopping her holiday snaps in the dial up days and eventually finding a place for herself online as a successful blogger, with some pretty cool sounding internet-jobs along the way. We're the same age so I basically shared most of her online teenage experiences from MSN and bebo to Facebook and Twitter. She is an engaging storyteller, unafraid to give all the gruesome details of a life lived online. I particularly enjoyed her online dating stories; I have some very similar MSN romance escapades. I laughed and smiled and cringed along as I walked around listening to the audiobook, probably alarming passersby. Follow Emma on twitter, subscribe to her podcast and definitely download this audiobook because it's great and she's one cool lady. 

On the Other Side

I really wanted to like this book, I really did. I've watch Carrie on Youtube for years now and really like her. She's a talented, thoughtful lady. I've seen her talking about the writing of the book for ages so I was pretty interested to see how it turned out. I really liked the premise; waiting to get into the afterlife until you've let go of things holding you to earth. Our main character Evie Snow finds herself returned to her 27 year old form in the apartment building she inhabited at that time, unable to enter her old apartment, which contains her version of heaven, until she has let go of what is making her soul too heavy to move on. Much of the story is told through flash backs to Evie's life aged 27 living in a city, working at a newspaper, and falling in love with violinist Vincent Winters. There is no time or place setting at any point, something which has been done deliberately to make the story 'timeless', however I just found it very jarring with my brain skipping around trying to figure out if it was the 1900s, 1950s, 1980s, 2000s, so I could imagine the spaces and the characters within these spaces. There was also a lot of telling rather than showing, with characters introduced with full two page biographies and then sometimes not really seen again. It was strange. There is a school scene in the middle that felt so out of place, maybe because there was actually showing and not telling. Also in my hardback edition there are blank pages before each chapter, which really just felt like padding. Also also inexplicably there are moments of magical realism, which don't feel quite in tune with the story as a whole. However I have no doubt that Carrie will keep writing, this was a great premise and I reckon her future books will be way better. 

Books I read in July! Part 1: The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Uncommoners: The Crooked Sixpence, Rooftoppers

Helloo! Here's part one of my July reading roundup. I read 9 books in July so I'm splitting the reviews up into chunks. I read three lovely middle grade/ children's books, which was such a nice, cosy, comforting thing to do. The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones, The Uncommoners: The Crooked Sixpenec by Jennifer Bell, and Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell.

The Lives of Christopher Chant

This wonderful prequel is set years before Charmed Life and follows Christopher Chant's childhood before his adult role of Chrestomanci begins. Christopher has the ability to travel between worlds, which he does at night in his sleep, unbeknownst to his parents visiting wonderful vivid lands. Upon his Uncle Ralph's discovery of this power, Christopher is sent to these lands to bring back magical objects and artefacts. These dangerous trips lead to several disastrous injuries and it isn't long before Christopher's nine lives are discovered. Now destined to be the next Chrestomanci (for whom having nine lives is very important), and down several of those lives already, Christopher is sent off to Chrestomanci Castle to receive his magical education, much to his dismay as he has ambitions of being a cricket player. If you've read Charmed Life, you'll see a lot of Cat in Christopher as he gets used to the grim loneliness and strange magic of the castle. The goddess he meets in one of the worlds is a brilliant character, as is the cat Throgmorton. Full of Diana Wynne Jones' wonderful world building, charming details, and the perfect grumpy little boy voice. Definitely read this, Charmed Life and Howl's Moving Castle. I'll be getting myself a copy of every other Diana Wynne Jones book asap!

The Uncommoners: The Crooked Sixpence

After their grandma Sylvie has a fall and is rushed to hospital, Ivy Sparrow and her big brother end up travelling through a suit case to a land beneath London, where everyday objects like colanders and belts have very Uncommon special usages in a very magical way. Their grandmother's past is intertwined with this underworld, but unfortunately that past is a big mystery as Sylvie lost her memory in a car crash years ago in 1969.  They have to figure out how their grandmother is linked to this uncommon world in order to ensure the safety of their family. The world building is vivid and wonderful creating one of my favourite alternate Londons. Ivy is a great lead character too. It really reminded me of Heap House by Edward Carey, with its uncommon objects, and had much of the charm of Diana Wynne Jones about it too!

Rooftoppers

This is a beautiful book. As a baby, Sophie is found floating in the sea in a cello case after a shipwreck in the English Channel, by a man named Charles. He raises her, but her place with him is threatened by the childcare authorities, who believe no young lady should be raised by a man alone. Sophie believes her mother was in that boat and has vivid memories of her playing the cello. She strongly believes her mother is still alive. So Charles and Sophie run away following a clue in her cello case to a Parisian music shop. With a fondness for high places, Sophie learns all about the city from its rooftops and along with some new rooftop dwelling friends, goes in search for clues to the possible whereabouts of her mother. It's a really magical-lovely-spellbinding-wonderful rooftop world, with a heartwarming and impossibly exciting story. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 

That's it for part 1 of my July reading round up. Part 2 coming soon, featuring Passenger, Uprooted, On the Other Side and Ctlr, Alt; Delete!

Zoella Book Club Reviews: Everything Everything, We Were Liars, Fangirl

Helloo! When the Zoella Book Club books were announced I was very pleased to see three titles that I had already read and enjoyed immensely. Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon, E. Lockhart's We Were Liars, and Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, are all excellent choices for the book club for sure. It's great that so many people will get to read them! I will definitely be reading through some of the other titles from the list too, but I reckon I've read the best ones! Here are my reviews for these wonderful books:

Everything Everything

Nicola Yoon's Everything Everything is the story of a teenage girl, Madeline, who is allergic to absolutely everything. She can never leave her house, which was been carefully kitted out with state of the art air filtration systems, an air lock at the front door, clean white walls, even her books arrive decontaminated. Madeline is home schooled through online tutors, and her longterm nurse, Carla, checks her vitals several times through the day. The only people Madeline usually sees in person are her mum, who is a doctor, and Carla. When a new family moves in next door, she begins to speak with the son, Olly, through miming and notes held up at their windows, and then IM messages. Madeline is very wary of the dangers of the outside world due to her disease, but she is especially worried about the effects of falling in love. Narrated in first person by Madeline, this book is deals with love, trust, freedom and isolation perfectly. Having the main character unable to leave their location created this great limitation where, because things were kept simple, down to one setting, the author was able to fully explore this space and spend more time focussing on characters and development, which resulted in me really caring for the characters. Simplicity really is often the key. There were so many moments that gave me chills, and I was rooting for Madeline and any chance of freedom she could get, to live a 'normal' life.

We Were Liars

I highly recommend reading this book. I felt completely drained after reading it, which has to be a sign of a well written book. Most reviews and recommendations I've seen on We Were Liars give absolutely nothing away, so I may follow suit on that. But essentially it is mostly set on a family's private island on the coast of Massachusetts, where 17-year-old Cady spends the summer with her cousins. What I will say is that from the beginning there is some great... experimentation with the creative writing. There are metaphors that you don't realise are metaphors until you're half way through them and figure the character's heart hasn't actually fallen out her body and rolled down the lawn. It turns to poetry at points, to great effect. It's really great to see this kind of clever writing in a young adult book, young adults definitely deserve to be seen as clever readers. The reader follows with Cady as she slowly regains her memory, the story slowly revealing itself to the reader through the same fog the character is experiencing. There's romance, friendship, family, tragedy, heartbreak, memory loss, the works. Go read it now! ...And then make sure you have somewhere to have a lie down when you finish it.

Fangirl

Fangirl is the story of Cath and her twin sister Wren, heading off to college for the first time and growing apart as they each find their place away from home: Wren being socially adventurous and outgoing, Cath being mostly afraid to leave her dorm room. Cath is deeply involved in the Simon Snow fandom and has a huge online following for her fanfic. I got right into the Simon Snow fanfic, (I really want the Simon Snow series to be real- there's room in this world for Harry and Simon), and I loved that it was about fandom, BUT I didn't really end up liking the main character Cath or main love interest Levi. I don't know what happened, I connected with her at the beginning when she was too scared to find the dining room and hiding in her dorm and eating tacos with her dad. I think I found her relationship with Levi a little off putting, he seemed sort of fatherly towards her... it was kind of icky. All that aside, I enjoyed reading it and I am kinda thrilled that the world of fandom has been so sensitively explored in the capable hands of Rainbow Rowell. If you haven't already, I really recommend reading Carry On, which is Rainbow Rowell's own exploration of the Simon Snow characters and is so much fun!